Menu

Two Smudde siblings. One blog. No apologies.

Tag Archives: work

I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen Parks and Rec, Daniel. If you haven’t, I highly recommend it. The characters are genuine, the humor is funny without being offensive, and somehow the story is both hilarious and deeply moving. I am not exaggerating when I say that watching this show has changed my life. This show taught me how to love myself and how to love the people around me.

It also gave me a new role model. When I grow up, I want to be just like Leslie Knope.

Leslie Knope is a wonderful woman who spends her energy trying to make the world a better place for the people around her. She’s kind, she’s supportive, she’s ambitious, and she’s always excited about her next adventure.

I know I’ll never be exactly like Leslie because I don’t have an endless reservoir of bubbliness inside me and I’m definitely not assertive enough to be a leader. But I can be generous and ambitious in my own way.

Recently, I’ve been planning out elaborate parties and making things for the people around me just because. I’ve been crocheting afghans, planning surprise parties, and buying tiny gifts for my friends because I want to see them smile. While I’m still nowhere near Leslie’s level of generosity in the show, I feel like she would be proud of me because instead of focusing on myself, I’m thinking of the people in my life. I’m showing them that I care about them without being ashamed of my love.

I’m also continuing to push myself to try new things every day. I know that I can sometimes get complacent, especially now that I have my degree and a comfortable job. It’s so easy to lose focus sometimes or forget that there are still things to work for. So everyday I remind myself that Leslie never lost focus. Everything she did, she did to reach a goal and that’s how I want to live my life.

As you know, I’m training for a half marathon right now. Lots of people have wished me luck. Others have asked me why I would do this to myself. I’m doing this because I want to be able to say I ran a half marathon. That’s it, that’s the reason I’m working so hard. Sometimes people won’t understand why you’re working for something and Leslie Knope taught me that, despite what they say, you keep going. Don’t give up.

Of course, Leslie does have her faults. Except, instead of being ashamed of her faults she embraces them. Instead of stubbornly ignoring her flaws, she understands that sometimes she needs help and she reaches out to her loved ones for it rather than pretending she’s perfect. Leslie can be controlling, anxious, obsessive, and self-centered, but none of these things make her an unlovable person because she works every day to make sure they don’t define her.

Damn. Talk about #goals, am I right?

I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to be perfect. I rarely challenge myself because I’m afraid of failing and I never talk about my fears with the people around me because that would mean I’m flawed. For a majority of my life, I’ve equated being flawed with being unlovable.

Watching Parks and Rec helped me realize that wasn’t the case. Seeing Leslie Knope struggle with her own flaws and still succeed helped me realize that I can still be a good person without being perfect 100 percent of the time.

Basically, what I learned from Leslie Knope is that sometimes it’s better to be remembered as a fun, generous person rather than a perfect human being who can do no wrong. I want my friends and family to think of me and smile or be inspired or just feel warm and fuzzy rather than remember how skilled or smart I am.

There is some controversy about where this quote comes from. It has been attributed to a Roman philosopher named Seneca, to the football player Darrell Royal, and an American insurance salesman and writer named Elmer Letterman.

You gotta read this, Daniel. So good!

Before you start imagining me, sitting at my desk, reading classic literature and smoking a pipe, let me tell you where I actually found this quote. I found it in the wonderful novelist Nick Offerman’s book, Gumption.

Not quite as regal sounding as a Roman philosopher or great American writer, huh?

When I read this quote, it really resonated with me. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it or some iteration of it before, especially since it goes hand in hand with things like “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and “you better work, bitch.” However, I think it stuck with me because it doesn’t attribute success to just hard work. Yes, hard work is essential to accomplishing your goals, but in this day and age you could be the hardest worker and still get nowhere.

As a fellow millennial, Daniel, I’m sure you’ve heard all the terrible things people say about our generation. We’re all selfish and entitled and don’t know the meaning of hard work. As a fellow millennial, you probably also know that this is complete and utter bullshit.

It seems like every person I know who’s close to my age works their ass off. All of my friends work forty or more hours a week, find odd jobs around town to make extra cash, and still need to pinch pennies every single week. You can just glance at the news to see that people our age are having a hard time finding steady work, even with college degrees, and yet for some reason lots of people seem to think it’s our fault.

We’ve been preparing all our lives for our lucky break. Now we just need the opportunity.

After reading this quote, I’ve been thinking a lot about my own goals. Some of them I have been actively working towards, like running a half marathon. However, I realized for some of them I’m just sitting around waiting for the opportunity rather than using my time to prepare for when that opportunity arises.

Maybe the previous generation was right about me. Maybe I am just a lazy, entitled millennial.

Me after a long run.

One goal I’ve had since I picked up a pen was to write a novel. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was in elementary school and I would love, love, love to publish one of my stories for the world to enjoy.

Except, in the last four years, I haven’t been preparing for it at all. I have written three, maybe four short stories in the past four years. That might sound like a lot, but that’s definitely not enough to prepare to be a writer. I’ve been sitting around, waiting for something to strike suddenly and change my life rather than getting up and changing my life myself.

I feel like I also sit around waiting for easy opportunities rather than taking advantage of the tools at my fingertips. Yes, it would be so much easier to get picked up by some big publishing company and have them edit and promote my work, but that won’t happen until I get my name out there. And how can I do that? Well, in this magical age of the internet, I can self publish. No one’s stopping me from writing my stories and posting them somewhere. Maybe even on a WordPress blog. What a concept!

This is where I subtly work in our new blog, Write Makes Right. See how I did that? I’m a marketer.

But there’s more to it than just posting what you’ve created on the internet and hoping people will stumble upon it. If I want to make my writing dreams come true I have to be my own editor, promoter, and manager.

Terrifying? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

Sorry for this one being a bit rambly, Daniel. Nick Offerman talks so much about creativity and hard work in his novel that, once I finished it, I was eager to get out and just do something. Anything! I just felt the urge to create and write and this blog post is a product of that passion.

This is also an example of how I need to hone my skills if I’m going to be my own editor.

This week, I had planned to write the beginning of a short story that we would both contribute to. I was really looking forward to kicking this off and even had a few ideas for how I would start things.

And then camping got in the way.

This weekend, I’m camping in Dworshak State Park with a group of friends. I’ve been looking forward to this for months and months, and yet it still managed to sneak up on me. So much for being the organized Smudde child. So, instead of kicking off our fiction writing collaboration, I’m just going to talk about why I love camping.

When we were kids, we would go camping every summer. Sometimes we would camp with our neighbors, the Mesners, and other times we’d invite people from the Smudde clan to join us. I remember swimming and biking and roasting marshmallows. Some of my favorite memories are of us sitting around the campfire, blowing bubbles over the flames and eating scotcheroos.

When I was little, I think I liked camping because it felt like an adventure. Looking back, I honestly wouldn’t really call what we did camping. We had running water and flushing toilets and sometimes even electrical hookups so we could watch videos on our tiny TV. But, to a seven-year-old, it felt like we were really roughing it and it was exciting. I felt like I was in one of my fantasy novels, the young heroine searching for a lost treasure or some mythical woodland elf presiding over her kingdom.

Twenty years later, I still love to camp. Even at 26, I still feel like I’m going on an adventure, but now it has the added benefit of getting me away from my responsibilities. Nowadays, I have way more on my plate than I ever did when I was a kid and every year it becomes harder to de-stress. After work, I go home and try to relax, but inevitably find myself looking at my work email or thinking about an upcoming project that I need to tackle. On the days where I don’t do that, I sit around and worry about finances, about my career, about literally everything in my life. The only time I can seem to shake this off is when we go camping.

When we arrive at the campsite, the very first thing I do is shut off my phone and put it away. Basically when I go camping I disconnect from everything, but not just to relax. While camping I physically cannot connect so I’m never tempted to look at work email or poke through social media.

Going camping is not only an adventure, it’s also the easiest way to get away from everything that causes me stress.

I am so excited to head out to Dworshak this afternoon. I’m looking forward to drinking a beer by the campfire. I’m looking forward to finding a sunny spot by the water to read my book. I’m looking forward to waking up to birds chirping rather than a noisy alarm. I’m looking forward to spending time with people I love away from the stress of real life. It’s going to be a kick ass weekend.

Sorry I didn’t start our short story this week like I promised, Daniel. I’ll try to kick it off on my next post.

No matter how hard I try to plan out my week, I always end up writing my post at the last minute. I spent most of last night working on a birthday gift, reading American Gods, and wrangling a baby ferret.

Fijit figured out how to get into the kitchen sink last night. I definitely need that extra reflex save bonus because Fijit’s cuteness will only save her up to a point. I definitely need an extra benefit to owning this little ball of mischief.

Thankfully, I pretty much know exactly what I want to write about. I want to write about tattoos.

This past Tuesday I had work done on my Ganondorf thigh piece. I’ve been a huge fan of the Legend of Zelda series my entire life and I’ve always wanted a tattoo to reflect my love. I already have a Navi piece on my shoulder and a Majora’s Mask tribute on my other thigh, but I really wanted a massive tribute to my absolute favorite villain of all time, Ganondorf, so I sat down with my artist and we came up with a fucking massive tribute to him.

Whenever I get a new tattoo I get asked the same set of questions: How much did it cost? What does it mean? Why did you get it? How are you going to feel about it when you’re 50?

Well, I’d like to answer these question here so whenever I get these questions I can just refer them here.

How much did it cost?

Obviously I can’t create a “stock” answer for this question because every tattoo is different. My Ganondorf piece at this point has cost four times as much as my bees and it’s still in progress.

The question I can answer is how do I justify paying so much money for a tattoo? Why do I spend so much money on tattoos?

Well, first of all, I don’t have to justify my choices to anyone but myself and my spouse. As long as our bills are paid and our quality of life is stable, I can spend my money how I choose. Also, I bet if I add up all the money you spend on going out to each and getting fancy lattes and buying new clothing, it would be comparable to how much I shell out for a tattoo. So don’t judge!

I choose to sacrifice my ability to go out to eat and buy new clothing all the time because I want quality tattoos. I’m turning myself into a piece of art and I want to make sure it’s good art. If I have to spend a little extra cash that’s fine by me.

What does it mean?

This is another question that will have different answers depending on the tattoo. My slug tattoo is for my grandmother who used to collect banana slugs for her Master Gardeners group. My paw prints are for my beautiful babies, Bandito, Crush, Fijit, and Herman, and for all of my future ferrets.

Well, on the other hand, my bees are just because I like the phrase “bees knees.” My Zelda tattoos are because I like Zelda. Definitely not as poetic as my other tattoos, but again I don’t have to justify my decisions to other people. Getting a tattoo because it’s cute is just as valid as getting a tattoo for a deep personal reason.

Why did you get it?

Why do I get tattoos rather than, for example, investing in art that represents parts of my life? Well, first of all, I like tattoos. I love how tattoos look and how they make me feel. Second of all, there’s something very satisfying about permanently displaying a part of your personality on your skin.

Let me explain.

There are so many instances in our lives where we have to conform to other people’s expectations. When we go to work or go to family functions we have to fit this specific image and it never stops. We never get a reprieve and it’s exhausting. It’s during these moments, when I’m “playing a part,” that my tattoos are the most comforting. Yes, I have to stand up in front of these people and be this other person, but underneath my blazer or my slacks my true personality is permanently displayed on my skin. The world can’t take that away from me.

And, when I get home and change back into my comfy clothes, I get to look in the mirror and be reminded of who I really am.

Wow, I’m feeling very emo. Excuse me while I go to Hot Topic and purchase some band t-shirts and fish nets.

How are you going to feel about it when you’re 50?

Now this question is the most infuriating for me because the person is obviously assuming I didn’t think this through. I know exactly how long tattoos last, thank you very much.

Anyway, I know for a fact that I’m going to love my tattoos when I’m 50. Reason one: I’m going to be able to look back on my life and know that I did what I wanted when I wanted. Regret goes both ways, my friend. I could regret getting these tattoos or I could regret being too afraid to go out and get inked.

Reason two: Yes, maybe in 30 years I won’t be as in love with Legend of Zelda or bees or ferrets, but for right now these things are my world. These tattoos not only represent my life, they represent a time in my life that I will always look back on fondly. When I’m 50 I’ll look at my skin and remember who I was in my 20s and it will warm my heart.

Reason three: These tattoos are officially a part of my body. Yes, I might look at them and wish something was different, but after carrying them with me for 30+ years I’ll have come to accept them as part of me. Does that make sense? I guess when I think about hating my tattoos, I compare it to hating my nose or my thighs. Yes, there could be days I dislike them, but it’s important to accept the things you cannot change. I realize that I didn’t actively choose to make my nose look the way it does or to make my thighs thick, like how I chose to get a tattoo, but still I’m not going to waste energy hating parts of my body or regretting my decisions.

Sorry! This was quite a rambly post for me. Hopefully this all makes sense.

As you already know, this week has been crazy. Next week I’m travelling to Virginia for a conference and I have been desperately trying to get everything done before I leave at 5 a.m. on Monday. I’ve been so busy I’ve been taking my work home and working until about 7:30 at night. After I put my work away, I usually turn on Netflix and have a beer to recover.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m just trying to set the scene because, after scouring my brain for writing topics, I finally settled on something I’ve been familiar with this week: stress.

I am absolutely no stranger to stress. In high school, I took Advanced Placement classes and participated in the marching band cult. In college, I took an average of 5 classes a semester, worked part time, had an internship with the communication department, and helped run the Association for Women in Communication. Honestly, between the ages of 15 and 22, I was made entirely of stress.

Nowadays, my life’s a bit more lowkey. I work 40 hours a week and, after work, I go home and do what I want. So this week has been a little rough because I’m definitely out of practice with the whole managing my frustration thing. I’ve really had to summon up the work ethic and serenity I had in college.

Before I jump into my methods for stress management, I don’t want this to be a humble brag. I know in high school and college I was an overachiever and was even called a “unicorn student” by my advisors. I’ve never sought out that type of glory and I absolutely don’t revel in it. It’s just who I am and I’ve come to accept it. I’m a neurotic ball of nerves when it comes to work and I would definitely not recommend being like me.

0 out of 10, would not recommend being me.

Here are my tips for managing stress. This post is honestly more for me than it is for you, Daniel, or even our readers. I will be referring back to this while I’m in Virginia to keep me from pulling my hair out.

Make a list of the shit you gotta do: Yes, this is a very basic tip, one you probably learned in your high school health class, but it fucking works. I still rely on my to do lists because it takes that overwhelming sense of “oh fuck, I have so much to do” and puts it on paper. When I looked at my list for this week, I actually only had like four things to do and four things is much easier to swallow than a million things.

Prioritize that shit: Again, a simple tip, but when I say prioritize I don’t mean just list things in the order you should do them. First, list things as “I will die if I do not do this” or “I can survive without doing this.” Then, move on to what you need to do to keep your job and your house. Then and only then figure out what order you should do it in. When you first start making your list, you might feel like everything on your list is life or death. I can assure you that it’s seriously not. Me printing the materials for my meeting seemed like a huge ordeal, but it did not come before me calling my student loan provider to pay my bill because not paying that bill could compromise my financial situation. See? It’s easy when you think about it.

Make sure you make time for you: This might seem to contradict the last point I made, but I would argue making time to relax is essential to surviving. If I just wallowed in my stress and continued to work through the night, I would feel like death all week. I’ve been making time for Netflix and beer because, without it, I might not survive to make it to work the next day and then nothing would get done.

Budget your time: This is essential, especially when I’m working on a writing piece. It’s so easy to spend hours and hours working on a piece and forget you have other things to do. So, when I’m at work, I set time limits on certain project. For example, yesterday, I have myself three hours to draft my homepage article. No more, no less. That way not only could I get that article done, I wouldn’t waste an entire afternoon switching out adverbs to make the article perfect.

Accept that not everything will get done: This is where that prioritized list comes in. Sometimes you just honestly do not have the time to finish everything and instead of compromising your sanity to try and get everything done, you just need to accept it. I did. This week I had an annual report I needed to finish, but it was such a big task I knew if I worked on it I wouldn’t be able to do anything else. So I took a look at my list of “what do I need to do to keep my job?” and decided that the little things were more important than the report. And guess what? I felt so much fucking better.

Those are my tips for how to survive stress. Hopefully these are helpful.

After many infuriating hours of trying to jog my memory, I finally remembered what I wanted to write about. Note to self: in the future, write my ideas down. Just taking a second to jot this down would have saved me hours of frustration. What I wanted to write about was how spectacular it is that sites like Paypal, Ko-Fi, Patreon, and Kickstarter exist.

Recently, I’ve been trying to find easy ways to put a few extra dollars in my pocket. I have a full time job with decent pay, but having some extra money to throw at my student loans would be very, very nice. I’ve looked into freelance writing and other flexible online jobs, but I’ve been having an incredibly hard time getting hired. I’m sure thousands of people, in similar situations, are applying for these positions and it’s so hard to sell yourself over email. So what’s a woman with some debt to pay to do?

I know I have talent, but how can I make money from it if I can’t convince big companies to hire me? Well, the answer is easy. Skip the big companies and go right to the consumers.

I’ll admit the internet has it’s problems. It’s my primary source of procrastination. I waste a ton of time mindlessly scrolling through Tumblr and Twitter, time I could be using to actually improve my life. On the other hand, the internet has created a whole new way to make money from art. It’s cut out the middleman by giving artists, writers, and other creative people the ability to let their work speak for themselves.

So before I jump into this, let me just clear something up. I define art as anything that is creative. Therefore, despite what a lot of people think, to me the term artist includes painters, sketchers, writers, dancers, musicians, poets, and basically everyone who creates things to make people feel something. I consider myself an artist, despite the fact that I do not paint or draw or sculpt. I am an artist who works with words and yarn, sometimes at the same time.

Anyway, before the internet, only a few very lucky artists could live off of their work. An artist would not only have to be talented and hardworking to make money, they would also have to be in the right place at the right time to find their audience. Now, with the invention of the internet, the world is a much, much smaller place. My work might be very niche, but now, using the internet, I can find that niche even if it’s on another continent.

Now I’m not going to lie, finding a freelance writing job would be much, much easier.in terms of making quick money. Making money online takes a lot of hard work, but at least my work would get to speak for itself. I can say on a resume that I am a good writer, but a person would actually have to read my work before they would really believe that.

So, I guess I need to think about where to start? I’ve been working on opening an Etsy shop, so should I also look into selling my writing skills? Looking at my student loans, maybe that’s not such a bad plan.

Dude, it was amazing to see you this weekend! I already miss you like crazy, but I’m glad you made it home safe. And I’m serious when I say I literally miss you like crazy. This morning, I woke up at 2 a.m. and thought I heard your voice out in the living room. That’s the level of crazy, and exhausted, I am.

Before you left on Monday, you bought me a copy of Norse Gods by Neil Gaiman, which is a book I’ve had my eye on. I was so excited to start reading it, so I took it home and…put it on the huge pile of other books I’m excited to read.

Like the title of this post says, I am the best kind of overwhelmed right now. I have SO many books to read and podcasts to listen to and movies to watch, it’s a little intimidating. However, after spending a few months in a media rut, I am ecstatic to be in this position.

At the end of 2016, I was having a really hard time finding a book series that I could get into. I was craving the full immersion I experienced with series like Harry Potter and The Dresden Files, but just couldn’t find anything I really liked. I also just finished watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix and was dealing with the void that left, so I couldn’t really turn to TV. And, to top off my media rut, I had listened all of my favorite albums into the ground so even music felt boring.

Well, at the beginning of 2017, I decided to re-read The Dresden Files. It had been a while since I had read the whole series and I knew that I liked the series. It wasn’t something new, but hey, at least I knew it would keep my attention. The only copies of The Dresden Files we have are signed hardcovers. Not only are hardcovers difficult to fit into a purse, I didn’t want to risk banging up a SIGNED copy.

Thankfully, the local library had the series. How did Arthur put it? Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card!

I walked down to the public library and found Storm Front, the first of the Dresden Files books. I grabbed it, but then kept poking around, looking for other books that might look interesting. Long story short, I ended up walking away with five books, four of which I had never heard of.

I read all of them in a month. Seriously. I hadn’t felt that excited about reading since high school.

That is definitely where this reading frenzy really started. By walking into the public library, I caught the reading bug and it has been fantastic! I’m currently finishing the Hannibal Lecter book series and have Norse Gods, two Jack Ketchum novels, the Exorcist, Apt Pupil, a Michael Crichton novel, and the third Dresden Files book to read. I’ve also had to physically resist picking up a copy of Lazarus Rising and The Magicians. I have way too many books to read as is.

Oh, I also have 1984 to read for my book club. Woe is me, I have too many books to read.

This podcast is literally my aesthetic.

When you were in town, you also showed me this podcast phone app and sent me a few podcasts to check out. Well, I’m happy to report, I have fallen directly down the hole that is podcasts. I’m currently ten episodes into Nightvale and have seven other podcasts I’m dying to listen to. To try and get through Nightvale, I’ve started spending my lunches at work coloring and listening to podcasts. Adulthood at its finest.

And, too top off this media influx I’m experiencing, I have a growing list of movies I want to watch. I’ve been reading a ton of horror novels and have felt very inspired to go out and check out some of the classic horror films I have missed. I want to watch all of the Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, and Hellraiser films as well as go out and find other classics like Poltergeist, The Exorcist, and Suspiria.

The problem with this is I only have to many hours in the day and eight of them are taken by work and another six to eight are taken by sleeping. I also have other things I need to accomplish, like exercising, cleaning, and other adult responsibilities. It’s been a hard week for me because I literally just want to sit at home in my PJs and binge everything. I don’t want to work or exercise or do ANYTHING but read and listen and watch.

I went from being in a rut to having WAY TOO MUCH to do. When it rains, it really fucking pours.